Sunday night already? *sigh* Oh well, it's been a great weekend and like all great things it must come to an end. I spent this whole week being freaked out and angry about my blood clot and doctors and on and on. Then, on Friday I just finally decided that I'd had enough of all that badness and I wanted to have a nice weekend. This is one bad thing in my life, but there are lots of good things and I need to make sure to enjoy them. (I'll put the update on my clot at the end of the post, I want to at least start out with good stuff.

Friday night was the usual recovery from the work week with pizza delivery and DVR'd Top Chef (rooting for Tre) and knitting (38 repeats on Fleurette) and video game playing. Saturday was an awesome day, though. Mark, Mom and I headed over to a new-to-us restaurant, Hugo, which features upscale southern cooking. The company (as usual) was the best part, of course, but the food was really phenomenal. I really didn't expect to enjoy the food as much as I did because southern cooking isn't my favorite. For the first course we had fried green tomatoes, corn fritters with marscapone and sea scallops with cauliflower puree (so much better than it sounds, I promise). For the second course, Hugo salads all around, good, but I didn't like the sherry vinagrette. For the third course, shrimp and grits (my first grits ever, so good with lots of white cheddar), monkfish with parsnip puree and asparagus (I usually love parsnips, but the puree was blech), and pork tenderloin with butterbeans. Dessert was lemon curd tart and pecan tart with madagascar vanilla icecream (it was to swoon). I love good food... and it shows. As we were getting ready to leave, Mom wanted to run to the restroom, so we told her we'd meet her outside. While we waited, Mark and I tried to get a picture of ourselves with the restaurant in the background. We didn't know Mom was sneaking up on us as I snapped the shot:

I almost fell over laughing when I saw this picture. I love the way Mom is peaking up over my head like "Hey guys, what's going on here?" And don't we look very happy and full of yummy food? I really love this picture. It is very "us." Happy and silly and together. (By the way, we did take another picture with the three of us... and I actually managed to get the restaurant's sign in the picture.)

Most of this week my leg has been hurting too much to sit down and spin, but Saturday night it was finally feeling good enough, so I sat down and started my next big project. I thought the occasion called for a glass of champagne:

Actually, it's sparkling apple cider because I'm kind of "meh" about alcohol. As far as alcoholic drinks go, the less it takes like alcohol, the more I like it. But I LOVE sparkling apple cider, so I celebrated the first steps on the very long road ahead of me with a glass of it. This picture actually shows a lot. In the bottom right corner, you can see my SOAR info and a pair of scissors and rubberbands I used to perfect the tension on my wheel. Then, there's the big pile of silk that will be used for the first ply and the little nests of fiber ready for spinning. And you can see Mark's rear end in his computer chair, right where it usually is :-P

So, I've started my next "big thing" and I'm very excited. Unlike the last shawl, I have no idea which way the design will go, but I'll have plenty of time to think about that as I spin. I'd love to do a circular shawl, but right now the silk is gently whispering "triangle." I guess we'll see.

As for the leg... The doctor FINALLY got back to me on Wednesday. I was supposed to find out on Monday, but the sonogram reader was on vacation. They called me Monday to tell me they'd let me know Tuesday. Then on Tuesday, nothing. So Wednesday morning I called and left a not very happy message to call me back. The doctor did call me back and basically said the clot is in a superficial vein, so I'm fine. Uh... more information, please. So, I started asking him questions about all of the questions he left open when he first saw me because he wanted to find out first if it was actually a blood clot. After a bunch of stumbling and bumbling, he decided that maybe I should come back in for some blood work to see if I'm overcoagulating, blah blah blah. So, I don't know much more today than I did two weeks ago. Maybe I'll find out more this week when I go back, but I'm not counting on it. My leg is feeling a lot better because the clot has moved up from behind my knee to my upper thigh, which is a much less painful place for it to be. It worries me that it is that much closer to my lungs and brain, but Dr. Doesn'tCallBack said I don't have to worry about pulmonary embolism or stroke with this clot. He doesn't say why, so maybe he's just telling me a nice little story to make me feel better. Who knows? Worrying about it certainly hasn't made any difference, I'm going back this week for testing and I'll go from there. Now I just get to look forward to the hassle my health insurance company will be giving me when it receives the bills for all of these tests. Yay! I'm going to go stroke some silk to make myself feel better.

Oh, here's something I'm curious about--I see a Joy in that picture, and something off to the side that might be a Tina 2--? You do some incredibly fine spinning, and I was wondering about your wheel preferences for that. Any other wheels in your house besides those? :-)

The migrating clot does sound a bit worrisome--I hope you get the straight story very soon. :-(